Interview

Original english and unedited
E-mail Interview
about the "City Opera", "Voices And Piano", and on perception

Questions by Pablo Gianera

I am writing you in order to interview you for the cultural supplement of *La Nación *newspaper from Buenos Aires, because of your next visit to Argentina.

What is that a voice has to have to become part of the actual cycle Voices and Piano? Is it a relationship with the voice or with the person?

voice and personality hardly can be separated completely. but i would answer: the voice. allthough some of the voices i have not heared before i decided to work with them: they were voices "within me". like the voice of feldman: i did not know it before, but i had a clear imagination about his voice - an imagination that turned out to be completely wrong in the end!

Are you planning to include your own voice in the cycle?

no.

all the voices togehter - in some way - are also something like a self-portrait, so, my own voice cannot be part of this portrait.

Which materials have you used for "Concierto Buenos Aires"?

I guess you are asking about the "City Opera Buenos Aires" that will be premiered in November. Actually it is the seventh act of "City Opera Buenos Aires", an evening filling piece for ensemble and video, that will be performed at teatro san martín. One of the other acts that are not shown this time, is a sound archive of Buenos Aires city noises, about 200 different recordings of various places, streets, barrios, restaurants, churches, parks, etc. which i recorded myself in 2007. this sound archive is also the basis of the ensemble+video piece. Another important source material was a series of recordings with the composer and singer Carmen Baliero talking about different subjects, like "the rain", about "voices", or "footbal". and last not least the frame of the 60 minutes piece is the video by Ian Kornfeld, a static shot of a single street corner (Anchorena / San Louis), which i also selected at my stay in 2007.

In an article on expression (Ausdruck), chance (Zufall) and lack of intent (Intentionlosigkeit) were a first step because they represented an opening in relationship with the enclosure itself (In-Sich-Geschlossene). But, at the same time, it said that sound is expression in itself. I would like you to explain how do you think the expressive element in your music.

i have been learning from my own music that there exists no perception without intention. if we could listen without intention we would hear nothing! and actually i beliefe that there are a lot of things arround us that we do not hear because there is no intention of what to do with them or why spending attention to them.

On the other hand, hearing with intentionality means creating a relationship between me, the listener, and the sound (or the music). and this means, that in every process of perception always our own indiviual and socio-cultural personality is involved. we will never be able to just hear what "is". we always also hear what we desire. we could as well speak about "projection": we project ourself, our own possibilities, our eductation, onto the sounds. And that is why we can nothings else than perceiving sounds as expressive. they will always tell us something. sounds as sounds are fiction. i am thinking about my music also as a research project. a research on perception. and about how perception creates us!

Which jazz musicians or jazz aspects are you interested in nowadays?

i am not involved enough any more to have an overview of this scene. but the best thing i remember within the last years was a concert of CONTEST OF PLEASURES, with Axel Dörner, John Butcher, Xavier Charles, Jean Pallandre and Laurent Sassi.

Which diferences do you find, beyond the purely acoustic, between Klang and Rauschen?

Well, related to what we discussed before, i might say, that Klang is more related to objects (or instruments), to stories, to temporal aspects, to knowledge - while the static nature of Rauschen withdraws in parts our application of knowledge, our establishing of relationship and intention. Rauschen is less predetermined which makes it a wonderful experience for the observation of perception.

Are there still limits one can define what is music and what is not with? Does the word "music" still mean something for you?

"music" is full of prejudices. which is fun! i like to play with this prejudices, i like the word "music" - as i also prefer the word "composer" to "sound artist". and sure, as long this prejudices exist there are limits. but as i said, this limits can be fun. they can be inspiring, they can create ideas and impulses to do the next step!

(September 2011)

"Los sonidos siempre cuentan algo" - Entrevista con Pablo Gianera - La Nacion
El compositor austríaco Peter Ablinger presentará dos obras en Buenos Aires, dentro del Ciclo de Música Contemporánea del Teatro San Martín